


Delicious

by fannyvonfabulus



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Simply Irresistable, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Cafe AU, F/F, F/M, M/M, Multi, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Skinny!Steve, Stony - Freeform, coffee house au, stony fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-15
Updated: 2018-12-15
Packaged: 2019-09-19 10:45:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17000100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fannyvonfabulus/pseuds/fannyvonfabulus
Summary: Steve inherits the failing family café when his ailing mother passes. Steve has no idea what he's doing, nor does he have any cooking talent, but goddamn if he's going to let the Stevie's go under.  So he limps on with the help of his rag-tag band of staff who know even less than he does.  Practice makes perfect, right?  He has all his mother's recipes and a band of faithful regulars that are barely paying his bills, how hard can it be?Tony owns a lot of great restaurants in Manhattan (d'uh, he's Tony Stark) and is looking to expand. He stumbles across a cute café in Brooklyn that would be ideal.  What he doesn't count on is the fiesty, skinny owner being adorable as hell, and he finds himself going back.  He'll tell himself that it's for the heavenly caramel eclairs that he's pretty sure are made of magic, but Pepper will say that it's because he's in love with Steve.Oh, and there's a magic crab, weird vanilla scented mist, and Tony is pretty sure that he just levitated.This is a tale of food, love and snow days with a sprinkle of magic along the way.





	Delicious

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the late 90's film Simply Irresistable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simply_Irresistible_(film)
> 
> I haven't written fic for about 6 years, nor have i read any in about 4 years. I got flu and had a fever dream about a film i've not seen in over a decade that morphed into a Stony AU, and felt compelled to write it. And I think alot of us are going to need Stony fluff in preparation for End Game.

The snow is about 2 feet thick that morning and is still coming down as Steve hurries along the sidewalk to the café, bundled in a multitude of layers to keep his skinny frame as warm as possible. And hurrying isn’t one of Steve’s strong points thanks to a seemingly never ending list of health issues. He adores the snow and how pretty Winter can be, but his asthmatic lungs would say otherwise. It’s a constant worry during the Winter, but Steve has never been one to let anything stop him from doing what he wants. Still, as much as he would love to take his time on his short walk to the café, he needs to be back in the warm before the icy air ceases up his lungs completely. The snow is piled up on the kerb thanks to the street sweepers having been out early this morning, but the sidewalk is still a little slippery where the salt hasn’t worked it’s magic yet. Steve shudders a little when he thinks back to his fall last year when he broke his arm. He had been walking way too fast, slipped on the untreated icy surface outside the café and snapped his arm in 2 places. He hated how frail and pathetic his body is sometimes, and he’s still struggling to pay the medical bill for the fall. On top of the struggling café, it’s just yet another challenge for Steve to overcome. He can’t yet see a way out, but he’ll think about that later. It’s 6am and his day has only just started, he doesn’t want to dampen his mood already this morning.

He fumbles a little with the keys thanks to wearing thick gloves, but he gets the back door to the café open eventually, which opens right into the kitchen. He remembers the summers when he was young and sitting on the back step of the sweltering kitchen with Bucky and eating ice cream from cones as fast as they could before it melted in the Brooklyn heat and turned their hands into a sticky mess. His Mother, Sarah, would scold them gently when they put their sticky fingers all over the door frame and everything else. Her hair would be flopping in her face after it would escape its confines of her hair clips, her cheeks red from working in the kitchen during the Summer months. Her blue eyes would twinkle at himself and Bucky as she shooed them out into the alley behind the café, sticky ice cream hands and all. 

Steve’s heart aches at the memories of his childhood and his mother. God, he misses her. It’s been nearly 2 years since she passed, but there is still a hole in his life, still grief. It’s slowly getting easier, but Steve doesn’t think there will ever be a day when he doesn’t think about his mother, especially not now he is the sole custodian of Sarah’s beloved café, Stevie’s. After Steve, it was Sarah’s favourite thing. She had poured her heart and soul into it and Steve is fiercely proud of her for it. Sadly, he hasn’t inherited her talent for cooking and the café is struggling. Steve hates that he might have to seriously consider selling, but if things didn’t pick up in the next few months, it’s all he had left in terms of assets. The bills are piling up, many already past due. And he has rent to pay on his shitty apartment above the café, as well as staff to pay.

Leaning against the closed door of the kitchen, Steve sighs heavily. He misses his mother deeply, but he has stuff to do today. So like he does every morning, he puts his mother and his money troubles to the back of his mind and starts to think about what needs to be done. He surveys the tatty looking kitchen and smiles softly. It hasn’t really changed much since he was a child. A few appliances had been upgraded over the years due to necessity, but other than that, it’s the same. The paint is peeling and the floor tiles have all but worn through to the concrete underneath, but it’s meticulously clean. Sarah had always kept the kitchen spotlessly clean, despite the ageing appearance, and it was why Stevie’s had always got top marks from the city’s food hygiene department. And the smell hasn’t changed much either. The kitchen always smells sweet thanks to all the baking that went on. The café does serve savoury dishes, but it was Sarah’s baking that people came for. That and the coffee from the ancient coffee machine behind the counter out front. Steve still hasn’t mastered how to use it because it terrifies him. Too many levers and dials. He leaves the coffee to Clint, who he’s pretty sure is 80% caffeine at this point. Besides, Steve doesn’’t drink coffee because of his heart condition. The only smell missing from the kitchen these days was that of his mother’s perfume. Floral and summery, it was always there in the kitchen mingled with the sweet scent of sugar and cinnamon. 

Today Steve needs to try and finish the new menu, something that he has been working on for weeks now. He hopes it’ll help bring people back to Stevie’s, which would in turn boost the café’s income. Of course, he needs a miracle to be able to be as good as his mother was at baking, but he has all of her recipe books and scribbled notes, how hard could it be? Steve huffs a little little laugh because even he has to admire his stubborn will to succeed sometimes. 

“How hard can it be….. really Rogers? Wow.” Steve smiles to himself as he starts peeling off his outer layers, turning on the big kitchen appliances as he moves around the kitchen to the utility room to hang up his huge coat and take his apron off it’s hook. “You know you can’t cook for shit.”

There's muffled knock at the back door and when Steve opens it, Clint all but falls through the doorway, stumbling into Steve, and is closely followed by a yellow labrador. Clint is bundled up in a purple scarf which is nearly trailing on the floor that Steve is pretty sure that Nat knitted for him, and a battered old army green parka coat, sleepy blue eyes only just visible.

“M’sorry Stevie.” the scarf says and Cint rights himself and swerves off in the direction of the coffee machine out in the café. It’s the same every morning: Clint without coffee is a mess. If Steve is being honest, Clint is a walking human disaster even when he has had enough caffeine, but the customers love him, as well as Lucky, who has followed Clint out to the front so that he can flop down on his usual spot in front of one of the radiators. Steve hear’s the familiar sound of the coffee machine gurgling to life and he knows that Clint will need at least 3 mugs of the stuff before he’s even vaguely coherent enough for Steve to talk to. It's been the same routine in all the years that Steve has known Clint and it’s not going to change any time soon. Steve hasn’t been able to pay him in weeks, but Clint just keeps coming back anyway. In fact, he hasn’t been able to pay any of his ragtag bunch of staff, but they never mention it and keep coming back. It makes Steve want to cry he’s so grateful. They know that he’s going to do whatever he can to get the café back on its feet and at least turning enough of a profit to get the bills back under control and the wages paid. So they stay and carry on doing what they do.

There’s another knock at the back door and Steve opens it to see Nat and Bucky. Neither of them feel the cold so they’re not as bundled up as Steve and Clint, but Bucky does have a glove over his prosthetic arm. When it gets too cold, it can make his shoulder ache, so he tries to keep it warm. Not easy when you kick out enough heat to power a whole block. Natasha slinks in, planting a kiss on Steve’s cheek and quietly making her way out front.

“Hey Stevie!” Bucky smiles, ruffling his friends hair as he walks past. Steve and Bucky have known each other since there were kids. Everyone else just kind of fell into place around them until they had their own weird family. Steve loved each and every one of them dearly and without them all, he’s pretty sure that he would have gone to pieces when his mother died. They picked him up and put him back together whilst they kept the business ticking over. And now they’re all he has left.

“What’s with the morbidity today Rogers, jeez,” Steve mumbles to himself, rolling his eyes at himself. 

“Huh?” 

“Nothing Buck, just talking to myself,” Steve chuckles. He grabs a waitress pad and pen and starts scribbling down what he needs from the market. “Can you stick your head in the larder and tell me if I need to get more maple syrup?”

There’s a muffled “No, we’re good,” from the other side of the kitchen when Bucky disappears into the walk-in cupboard, so Steve crosses it off his list.

“Right, i’m gonna head off,” Steve states as he starts putting his layers back on.

“Want some company?” Bucky asks as he reappears. 

“Sure,” Steve knows that Bucky is going to come whether he says no or not. He knows that Steve will struggle to carry everything back by himself for 4 blocks, so he always goes to the market with him. “GUYS, WE’RE HEADING OUT - NEED ANYTHING?”

“PIZZA!” Comes the answer from Clint.

“Barton, pizza is not breakfast,” Steve laughs back.

“It’s dinner time somewhere boss!”


End file.
